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Sunday, November 8, 2009

Botox for Migraines? Fascinating...

Some of you who stop by regularly (I love you guys!) know that I get migraines. They popped up probably in my early 20s, but I wasn't officially diagnosed with them until a couple of years ago. My first line drug is Amerge, which works wonders for me.

More recently, I figured out that I'm crazy-sensitive to fructose and cut that out of my diet completely. What's nuts about that is that fructose is in so many things, even ... in ... gluten products. So I don't eat any gluten anymore. Removing both fructose and gluten from my diet has been honestly life changing, if even just from a diet standpoint. Truly, it's a day by day tactic. If you want to read more about that issue, it's called Fructose Malabsorption and you can read more at this blog.

Well, tonight I came across a news story on iVillage that states there may be research that Botox can help people who get migraines. The research starts as far back as 1992 when some people who were having Botox done for cosmetic reasons noticed that they were also getting ongoing relief from migraines. As more research has been done, some severe migraine sufferers have had as much as a 50% reduction in the frequency of attacks.

It's so strange that much of what doctors seem to learn about the treatment of migraines comes as secondary effects from other treatments. Except for the triptan class of drugs, which were designed specifically to treat migraines, most prescription medication for migraines was originally created to treat something else. Some were originally for epilepsy, others for headaches, and others for neurological disorders. The realization that magnesium helps some people also came as a secondary effect from another study. It's very interesting that botox may also help some people who get migraines.